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Freiburg's Kevin Schade was fouled several times
Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
At the end of the Europa League group stage, SC Freiburg scored a point at Azerbaijani club Qarabağ FK and played 1-1 (1-0).
In Baku, Freiburg, who had already won their group before the game, made ten changes to their starting XI.
Compared to the league game against Schalke 04, only captain Christian Günter remained in the starting line-up.
Nils Petersen scored a penalty (25th minute) for the team, which was largely made up of supplementary players, and Owusu equalized in added time (90'+1').
In terms of sport, the game only played a role for Qarabağ.
You could see that on the pitch, the hosts were clearly more active and dangerous at first: Owusu failed twice at Freiburg goalkeeper talent Noah Atubolu, who made his Europa League debut (5th/23rd).
On the other side, it was painful for Kevin Schade for the first time: Bahlul Mustafazadeh rudely tackled the Freiburg right winger.
Referee Alexey Kulbakov initially decided on a free kick, but was corrected by his video assistant to a penalty.
Petersen converted it safely (25th).
However, Freiburg were still not the better team.
Qarabağ pressed for the equaliser.
First, Freiburg's Hugo Siquet brought down Qarabağ's right winger Marko Vesovic in the penalty area.
Kulbakov recognized the foul correctly, but the situation was preceded by an offside position.
After further help from the video referee, the penalty was canceled (50th).
Medina straddles Schade from the pitch
And it was a busy day for the Portuguese Tiago Martins, who was on duty as VAR: Just four minutes later, Martins reported on Vesovic's supposed equalizer, which was also offside, albeit narrowly (54').
The video referee had to intervene a fourth and last time when Qarabağ defender Kevin Medina (61st) tackled a violent tackle.
Schade was again the one to suffer.
Both players had to be sent off: Medina because Kulbakov corrected himself from a yellow card to a red card after looking at the video images, a pity because of the pain after Medina's foul.
Outnumbered, Qarabağ managed another urge late in the game, but Owusu was only able to use it to equalize (90'+1').
The Azerbaijanis were eliminated, in the parallel game FC Nantes beat Olympiacos Piraeus 2-0 (0-0) and passed Qarabağ in second place.
Nantes continues in the intermediate round, Freiburg, as group winners, are already safely in the round of 16.
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